


Political Passions

by onnari



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Aromantic spectrum, Asexuality Spectrum, Banter, F/M, Gen, Political Alliances, Political Marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 20:34:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29338377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onnari/pseuds/onnari
Summary: “I mean to address the matter of marital expectations,” she said with a certain gravity and to his credit he turned towards her, joining her at the table.“Marital or martial expectations?” he teased to return some levity to the room. “Or are they one in the same?”“A joke better suited to written form,” she pithily informed and was answered with a laugh. She smiled back, half unwilling.--Finalizing the negotiations of their political alliance, Edelgard and Claude broach a topic of a far more personal nature.
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg & Claude von Riegan, Edelgard von Hresvelg/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 10
Kudos: 43
Collections: FE3H - Ace/Aro Week





	Political Passions

**Author's Note:**

> Written for FE3H AceAroWeek, Day 3: Politics!

The drafting of the marriage contract between the Emperor of Adrestia and Duke Riegan of the Leicester Alliance had already taken up the better part of their morning when they were persuaded to adjourn. An abstruse clause in the Alliance’s founding document proved the cause, their legal counsel needing time for further research, and in the lull that ensued the Adrestian Emperor rose to her feet, requesting refreshments in her own private drawing room.

Meeting the Duke’s eye, she extended the invitation, and with a small grin, he obliged.

It was as they crossed the threshold that Claude did away with at least the pretense of formality, putting on a show of making himself at home. Pilfering a pastry with one hand, he ran the other along the room’s bookshelves until he reached the great windows that admitted both light and an arresting view.

“Let’s not stand on ceremony,” he told her over his shoulder, framed by the favor of the sun. “We’re getting married, after all.”

“A political marriage is nothing but ceremony. Though,” she granted, settling herself before the cooling tea, “less so in times of war.” She reached forward to pour the brew, the better to dictate the course of their meeting still.

The day’s entire affair, in truth, might have proceeded without them, handled by proxies just as their impending marriage vows could be, but among the few definitive things they had learned of the other so far was that neither was liable to concede their matters to the jurisdiction of others.  
Important then, to establish some better understanding between them if they were to lead a joint war front.

This meeting, however, sought an understanding of a decidedly more personal nature, Edelgard armed with the thought that perhaps she, too, could broach a topic of intimate importance with the same kind of detached impartiality that the prospect of their marriage had been written out before them all morning. There was one particularity, at least, that could not go unconfronted.

“I mean to address the matter of marital expectations,” she said with a certain gravity and to his credit he turned towards her, joining her at the table.

“Marital or martial expectations?” he teased to return some levity to the room. “Or are they one in the same?”

“A joke better suited to written form,” she pithily informed and was answered with a laugh. She smiled back, half unwilling. “I do expect more of our time together will be spent at a war council table than not, but as for those circumstances where you might expect us to meet otherwise…”

Claude watched as she lifted her tea cup, some color also rising to her face, but her hands held steady, the liquid safely reaching her lips.

He thumbed at the rim of his own teacup, looking around the room again and landed upon the landscapes and portraitures that dotted the walls not already occupied by bookshelves. All told, it was a warmer room than he might have imagined, reminding him of the limitations of assumptions. Better to establish things with the initiative she’d taken. “It’s not like political alliances are known for their great marriages of love. I know to manage my expectations.”

Edelgard took care to set the cup back down without rattling it in its saucer, speaking just a little quicker through her residual awkwardness. “Let me be clearer. Do not hold any traditional expectations for the consummation of this union, no matter what our marriage contract might state. I have little personal interest in such matters.”

He bit down on an unconscious smile. “I thought traditions were what we meant to be breaking.” And then, because he could not help himself, he hazarded, “You don’t take to the company of men.” His grin turned a little self-deprecating. “Or is it just me?”

There was a faint ink stain at the corner of his mouth from when he’d raised his quill in thought over negotiations, and Edelgard’s eyes darted towards it again now, finding it to be as charming as it was maddening. That he was attractive was inarguable, but she shook her head at both that distraction and his raised supposition.

“Though I might not gravitate towards men with as much frequency, it is not that. Regardless of the person, I have little interest.” She straightened, leveling him with her stare. Previous experience demanded that she add, “Do not take this as just another moment of push and pull between us or a challenge I am issuing to you. It is merely a statement of fact in the interest of bettering our relations.”

Instead of engaging, he leaned back in his seat, freely giving way. “Understood.”

“Yes?” she asked, a little offset by both the brevity of his response and his greater lack of a reaction. She frowned, hearing the trace of uncertainty that had crept into her voice.

“If you’re saying you want to scheme around any specific clauses then you’re marrying the right person, after all. I’m only surprised you don’t want to strike them out immediately.”

“I have no desire to quibble over their nuances now when we have a war to see to an end. Better to spend our time in establishing the consolidation of our holdings and resources. We can strike down any unnecessary provisions later on if our alliance and partnership proves it can hold.”

“Then scheme we shall for now,” he replied, and that might have been all on the matter as they returned to their tea and its accompanying meal. Yet the decided lack of a challenge, even after calling for none—the unexpected and anticlimactic ease of the conversation—left Edelgard partially at odds, and under her stare, Claude betrayed his own touch of nervousness, sensing an opportunity slipping away. One he might make good on, if he was willing to divest himself of something equally private.

But Edelgard was not wrong. Sharing would only further their relations and between them he did not mean to drive any unnecessary wedge, owing to what they still had to see through together.

“Would you rather we start over so I can act surprised and disagree?” he asked. “I hate to break it to you, but it’s not quite the stretch of my imagination you seem to think it should be.” His fingers danced across the table, tapping out a frenetic, irregular rhythm. “If we’re really getting personal here… you shouldn’t have too many expectations of me, either. The feelings that might accompany a marriage always felt a little... beyond me. One of life’s many mysteries, even if everyone else seems to have solved it already. These days I think I understand it most through—well, friendship.” 

He looked up, better meeting her eye through the hair that had swept down across his face. “And friendship, I’ll admit, is something I’m only just getting better at.”

“I am not marrying you for your friendship,” she told him frankly. “Nor for you to be enamored with me or even find me attractive. I am aware I can be a difficult person with which to contend.” She indulged in a wryer look. “Though no more vexing than you are, I assure you.”

“That’s the fun between us though, isn’t it?” he laughed, and Edelgard’s own lips quirked, unable to deny the sentiment. He appreciated that hint of softness and the striking contrast it made with the sharp awareness in her eyes, directed unremittingly upon him. “But in the spirit of making good between us, let me at least tell you that objectively I do find you rather becoming. I can recognize my own good fortune there.”

“I had not finished,” she said, smirking openly now. “But do go on if you so wish.”

He made a pointed effort to say nothing at all, flourishing a hand at her to continue.

“All that being as it may,” she told him, striving to push down any resurfacing self-consciousness, “I do not believe anything approximating friendship or a certain… regard would be wholly unwelcome.” Something caught in her throat and she had to clear it. “Provided that expectations were still managed.”

“That is very good to know,” he pronounced, and the mischief in his smile was great enough that it reached his eyes. “I think as long as we are willing to live a little outside conventions, we will do very well for ourselves. Maybe even after we’re done with deposing our hopeful theocrat.”

Her hand grasped her cup with more surety at that topic of conversation. “That does come before everything, romance included.”

He mirrored her as she lifted her cup again, the two of them drinking in tandem. “There we are very much alike.” And it was indeed that commonality that had brought them to this point, joining together in pursuit of one singular goal. He lowered his lashes and shared, “It’s among what I admire most about you.”

It was only more of his playful flirting with no real intent behind it, that fact clearer than ever before, but she found she did not mind it either—was not, in actuality, above reciprocating as she enjoyed the amusement and its particular kind of wordplay over the remainder of their tea. A more agreeable battle of wits than the fighting that had previously pitted them against each other.

Inevitable, though, was the work that awaited, returning in the form of the knock that sounded at the door. Wordlessly then, they both rose to meet it. In the doorway Claude offered Edelgard his arm, and after only a moment’s deliberation, she took it.

**Author's Note:**

> This is just pure self-indulgence but hey, if you also like to think of Claude as ace/aro spec [I am here](https://twitter.com/_onnari), thinking the same thoughts.


End file.
